Elongation, also known as tensile strain or engineering strain, is a measure of the deformation of a material along the axis of an applied tensile force. It is defined as the ratio of the change in length () of a material to its original length (). The formula for elongation is given by:
Where:
- is the elongation or tensile strain (unitless, as it’s a ratio of lengths).
- is the change in length of the material due to the applied tensile force (in meters, m).
- is the original length of the material (in meters, m).